


The Unintentional Alchemy of Amnesia

by Aris Merquoni (ArisTGD)



Category: Dark City (1998)
Genre: First Time, Frottage, M/M, Queer Themes, Yuletide, Yuletide 2010
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-30
Updated: 2010-11-30
Packaged: 2017-10-13 11:30:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/136878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArisTGD/pseuds/Aris%20Merquoni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daniel at least remembers what he's forgotten; John doesn't even know there's something to forget.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Unintentional Alchemy of Amnesia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zoi no miko (zoi_no_miko)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoi_no_miko/gifts).



"What makes a person want another person?"

Daniel is not looking at John. He's not looking deliberately. John's mind and hands have guided the rubble of the Strangers' laboratory into new forms for him, benches and equipment in perfect order. John's mind has been in every molecule and atom of the room, the subtle alchemy of personality affecting every nook and crevice.

John is sitting on a table behind him, wearing his hat but having shed his coat. He is sitting in a pinstriped vest and white shirt with an angry expression, which Daniel can see in the reflection in the mirror he has on his workspace. Daniel does not like being unable to see what is behind him.

"I am sorry, John," he says.

"So this is your fault? You put those memories in her and changed her?"

Daniel shakes his head. "It is difficult, John, to know the balance of biology and memory," he says. "It is, of course, one thing the Strangers were studying. What makes a person... a person."

"She loved me, before," John says. "Now she says she's not even... that she's not _attracted_ to me. To men. Did your memories do that to her?"

He gestures the negative. "I do not remember the details--the memories which were injected. Sometimes people reject the programming of who they are attracted to. Sometimes they live a lie. Sometimes things change."

Daniel Schreber had no memories. Before the Strangers, there was nothing solid. But there were flashes. Two:

\--Looking up at the stars, an older boy breathing on the back of his neck, suddenly thrilled and terrified--

\--In a shower, hot water falling around him, steam in his eyes, the length of another man's hard cock sliding over his tongue, desiring nothing but this--

He had given himself, when he realized the Strangers believed all humans to align themselves in male-female pairs, a memory. Nothing fancy, a love affair. He didn't remember her name. The memory had implanted, but his desires hadn't changed. He'd removed it, feeling slightly dirty. Now he has only the memory of the memory.

"So you're saying," John says deliberately, "She might have been lying... earlier. She might never have been in love with me in the first place."

"Love, and desire," Daniel says, "are two different things. They understood... desire. Not love."

Daniel understands desire. He is not sure he understands love.

* * *

Above, things go on.

The mayor guides the bureaucracy. The police catch criminals. The businessmen go to work.

Daniel's job is to watch the people. He watches. He takes notes. Everyone is aware that something has changed, but nobody is quite sure what.

John studies the machines of the Strangers. He practices tuning, quietly, where no one else can see. The citizens of the city aren't ready yet.

For a week, after that conversation, Daniel doesn't see John. This is unusual. This is disturbing.

(He imagines John naked under his fingers. He imagines pale skin, soft over ribs and abdominal muscles, wisps of dark hair curling downward from his navel. He imagines taking John's cock in his mouth. He imagines the noises John will make.

He does not speak of these things aloud; he does not write them down.)

John will have not believed him, of course. John will be seeking a way to be reconciled with Emma--Anna--Emma. He will woo her, or rail at her, and he will return to yell at Daniel for manipulating her. In due course.

Instead, what John says the next time he steps into Daniel's lab is: "You know, I don't know if I've ever even had sex before."

Daniel turns around to stare at him. He blinks, resettles his glasses. John looks unshaven, perhaps slightly drunk. Or euphoric. John removes his hat, spins it around on one finger, then sends it sailing into a corner. He strips off his jacket with the same cavalier disregard and throws it after.

"I..." Daniel says, then realizes he doesn't know what to say.

"What about you?" John asks. "I mean, the Strangers had you wipe your brain, right? And they didn't give you many chances to get out. You ever get your dick wet?"

Daniel flinches. "Are you intoxicated?"

"No. Well, one drink. _Anna,_ " he leans on the name, "And I had a conversation. About women. And I needed a drink halfway through."

"I'm... sorry." He takes a breath through a tightness like a band around his chest. "And in answer to your question... no. I haven't, in this lifetime, had that kind of... intimacy."

"Ha," John says. He has a strange lilt to his walk, almost a swagger, as he steps over in front of Daniel and crosses his arms. "We should go. We should find a couple of hookers, if nothing else. Now that I'm not suspect number one any more."

The idea repulses him as much as John's skin--the tantalizing V at his throat, where the first button of his shirt has come undone--draws him. "No," he says. "I don't believe that would be appropriate."

"Appropriate?" John laughs. "What do you mean?"

"I have... no desire, John, to..." he trails off under John's searching gaze, then sighs. "Women. Just as Anna has no interest in our gender, I have no interest in women."

He expects, after saying this, that John will default to regarding him as an aberration. A freak, perhaps. Twisted in one more fashion. Instead, John's smile broadens.

"Thought so," he says. And then he takes another step forward.

Daniel experiences the sensations in order--dull surprise, John's hands warm on his shoulder and his cheek, startling softness of John's lips surrounded by subtle roughness of stubble, and the smoky taste of whiskey as John's mouth opens under his and his tongue licks out to savor John's flavor. He is too startled to be afraid. He is too terrified to be startled.

"I thought--" Daniel gasps when John pulls back, "You didn't--I mean, you and Anna--"

"I want this," John says stubbornly. He hooks his fingers in Daniel's vest and pulls, gently, enough to suggest intent but not effect it. "Don't you?"

"More than... you know," Daniel says, and perhaps all his defenses came down too quickly, because John looks up sharply, hazel eyes wide.

"Okay," John murmurs. "Okay. What do you want me to do?"

Daniel wants John to strip naked and lie back, he wants John to let him touch him all over, dig his fingernails into his skin, kiss and taste and bite until he's certain that John is real and breathing under him. He looks around his laboratory, the dull steel and downcast lights, and says, "We should go somewhere... more comfortable."

John is smirking at him. "You mean like with a bed?"

Daniel licks his lips. "Yes."

"Oh, well, that's easy." John even snaps his fingers as he tunes.

Daniel stares at the wide, luxurious bed which appears beside them for much longer than is strictly necessary. "C'mon," John says, pulling on Daniel's vest again. "I want to see you."

"You... want..." Daniel stutters, then gasps as John concentrates and his shirt and vest suddenly slither off his shoulders, falling to the floor. John reaches out and takes him by the arms, and gently pushes until he's sitting on the bed, then lying back on it, staring at the ceiling.

"You okay?" John asks, leaning over him.

Daniel manages to smile. "I can hardly believe this is real."

"Oh, it's real," John assures him. He smirks, then reaches a hand out for Daniel's glasses. "Do you need these?"

Daniel grabs at the frame protectively. "I--want to see you."

John stares at him, dumbfounded.

Daniel takes the pause to pull himself up on his elbows, back further onto the bed. John is still staring. "Oh," he says, as if only now realizing that he might also be scrutinized. "Oh, okay."

John doesn't tune his own buttons open like he did Daniel's. He plucks them free nervously, discards his vest and shirt on the floor. He doesn't look in Daniel's direction until he undoes his belt, but when he does--something in Daniel's expression makes him smile again, no bravado this time, a softer expression that stays when he kicks his trousers free of his legs and climbs up on the bed. John moves like a cat, one long limb at a time, and Daniel watches longingly the flex of muscles under his milky skin, the line of his back, the arch of his hips.

"May I?" John asks, reaching for Daniel's fly. He hardly has the strength to nod affirmatively in reply.

John surely knew he was aroused, must have felt it earlier when they were pressing against each other. He still looks surprised and curious when he pulls Daniel's boxers away, reaching out and stroking the length of Daniel's prick with an intent expression. Daniel hisses and holds his breath as the pads of John's fingers stroke a gentle firestorm of sensation out of his nerves. He is dizzy--John's touch, John's fingers, the anticipation, the terror that it might end.

"What do you want me to do?" John asks, breath raspy.

John doesn't know what to do. Of course John doesn't know. John has as little experience as Daniel has; John doesn't even know what experience he has or hasn't had in the past. Daniel has two fragments and a short lifetime of fantasies; John has, perhaps, not realized he wanted to sleep with men before this evening.

"Come here," Daniel says, and John climbs up the bed until they're face to face. Daniel reaches his hand up to cradle John's face, and then they're kissing again, whiskey-taste and desperation. Daniel's glasses get knocked askew and it's all right, all right, John on top of him sweaty and angular and real.

The noise John makes when Daniel slips his hand between their bodies and grasps John's cock is amazing. Something between a gasp and a moan, followed by another cry as Daniel starts moving his hand. Daniel squeezes his fingers firmly and shifts his weight so he can rub against John's hip. It's heavenly. It's perfect. He tangles his fingers in John's hair and feels answering hands pulling them together, closer, until all is heat and light and perfection.

He comes with a sudden shock, without any more encouragement than this, this, and the anticipation of years without anything to compare to this. John is only seconds behind him, eyes closed tight in rapture and then wide and unfocused as he pants for breath.

"Oh, God," John says. "I didn't know... it could be like that..."

"Was that... all right?" Daniel asks. His glasses have fogged up. He should clean them. It's hard to see John's face.

"It was perfect," John mumbles. He presses his face to Daniel's chest. "Perfect. I'm sorry I waited."

Daniel lays there in the silence for a few seconds, then says, "I understand it gets even better with practice."

John lifts his head up to blink sleepily at him, then smiles. "I'll be sure to remember that."

* * *

The next morning, Daniel is working again--with a lighter heart, an easier hand--and John comes up behind him and kisses him on the neck as he's organizing his notes.

"Do you think there are other people like us?" John asks. "I mean, there have to be, right? It can't just be us and Anna."

"I'm sure there must be," Daniel says.

And he hasn't thought about it before, but there must be--and even if not more homosexuals, then more men and women who feel somewhere, deep in their souls, that the memories dictated by the Strangers and crafted by Daniel's hands are wrong...

He turns to look at John, smiles shyly. "I'm certain there are," he says, and reaches out for John's hand. "And we'll find them."


End file.
